Rob's Blog

When I saw a story on ITV News last night, in which the mother of a murdered boy claimed he had been killed because his murderer had played the computer game Manhunt, I decided it was too ridiculous for comment. The report was almost funny: the news reporter earnestly describing how violent the game was voiced over images of a badly animated character splattering cartoon blood around. This kind of story comes around every once in a while and then fades away again.

It’s understandable for a grieving mother to lash out and blame something at random, less so for the press to sieze the opportunity to create a frenzy, as they would appear to have done. I wonder if the traditional media is afraid of computer games because they represent time not spent watching TV, or if this is simply another opportunity to whip up a storm over nothing, get all sanctimonious, lobby the government and then claim victory when Something is Done About It.

Depressingly, it is working already. Dixons (a company I’ve never had any respect for in the first place) are apparently removing the game from shelves. Hopefully that will be the limit of this ludicrosity, but it shows how little it takes before people begin clamouring for censorship.

Update: It would appear the link between the game and the murder is even more tenuous than I thought. It was the victim that had the game, not the murderer.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2004 at 8:14 pm and is filed under Civil Liberties, Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.